Business of the House

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Equal marriage is one of the big social changes of recent years for which the House has voted. I supported it, the hon. Gentleman supported it and a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends supported it, and I think that it has been a positive step. I wish the hon. Gentleman well, and I wish the friends whose wedding he will be attending all the best for the future. I have to say that I think the Labour party will probably be outnumbered by the Conservatives in Scotland this summer, as I know that a number of my hon. Friends will be taking advantage of the tourist destinations and, in some cases, fishing rivers which that fine country offers.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Although more than 90% of the highlands and islands is mainland, my constituents, along with people in neighbouring constituencies, continue to be unfairly discriminated against, and are forced to endure excessive delivery surcharges from some traders, particularly online. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the practice of delivery surcharges in rural areas?

[Chris Grayling]

That is an important issue, which does not affect only the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The provision of services in rural areas is an issue in many parts of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We have had a number of debates in recent weeks about, for example, the provision of rural broadband. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, as I would assure colleagues on both sides of the House, that when the Government can help to improve the situation in rural areas, that will be a priority for us.

Business of the House

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Many people across the UK are tied into mobile phone contracts yet they have either poor or no service in the areas where they use their phones. Will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time on whether people should be given the same rights as those with landlines and broadband to switch or cancel those contracts?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and it is simply not reasonable for companies not to offer the service that is being paid for. I know that he will use the next session of questions to the DCMS to raise that matter, and he might also find an opportunity to discuss it during the Budget debate over the next few days because it also has an impact on business.

Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

Members put the issue on the agenda all the time in these business questions, and they are right to do so to pursue their interests in that regard. However, I repeat what I said earlier: the Government have no intention of bringing forward those proposals.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Many people in many parts of the UK are tied into mobile phone contracts, but they receive poor or little service. Will the Leader of the House give us a debate in Government time on that important issue to allow those people—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No, we are not on those matters. It was an innocent error on the part of the hon. Gentleman, but that has nothing to do with a House business committee.

English Votes on English Laws

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I say again to the SNP and in particular to the hon. Members for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for East Lothian (George Kerevan), that one of the great ironies is that they can vote on education in my constituency, but they cannot vote on education in their constituencies. Such constitutional arrangements do not pass muster. We are putting in place changes that I think are right. They are necessary to hold the Union together and to provide fairness in this Parliament; they are right and proper, and their time has come.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Will the Leader of the House answer this question on the specifics of voting in this House and not try to dodge the issue? He says in his statement: “The key difference is that our plans provide for an English veto at different stages in the process.” Does he not recognise the rank hypocrisy of this position when his MPs flooded in to veto the proposals of Scotland’s MPs on the Scotland Bill?

[Chris Grayling]

No, I do not because constitutional matters—[Interruption.] I say to the Scottish nationalists that this is a Union Parliament that will vote collectively across the United Kingdom on constitutional change. That is true of the Scotland Bill and it will be true of the Wales Bill, as well as changes in respect of Northern Ireland and the Standing Orders on English votes. It is a Union Parliament and it will vote together on those issues.

Use of the Chamber (Youth Parliament)

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for the interventions of the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. We were told originally that the Youth Parliament was different because we needed to get more young people interested in politics. By definition, the Members of the Youth Parliament are already interested in politics and political issues and are taking the lead on these things. If we want to find a group of young people that are not already involved in the political process and inspire them to get involved, we should invite everybody other than the Youth Parliament to come and sit on these Benches, because presumably they are the ones we need to reach. Those in the Youth Parliament seem to be the last people we should invite to sit on these Benches if our reason for doing so is to get more people involved and interested in politics. So I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s arguments disintegrate straightaway.

What we have here is the usual rather sad charade of middle-aged Members of Parliament trying to curry favour with the youth and with the young vote. They ask themselves, “How can we give youthful voters the impression that we are trendy?” Basically, one way is to advocate motherhood and apple-pie tripe like this. They think that by doing these sorts of things they will prove that they are in touch with the youth and are really trendy, and that young voters will all go out and vote for them. I do not think young people are as stupid as hon. Members seem to think they are—that just because they are allowed to sit here once a year, they will all go flooding in and vote for those Members when the election comes. Hope is triumphing over reality, and it does not make them look trendy at all.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way to call out those people who are trying to court favour is to give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds? Then they can make their own decision.

[Philip Davies]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not want to test your patience by going off on a tangent about the merits of votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I do not agree with giving them the vote; I make that clear. I do not want to dodge the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I may be right in saying that Madam Deputy Speaker probably would not tolerate a lengthy debate on that. I think we are really debating whether the Youth Parliament should sit in the Chamber, so I do not want to incur Madam Deputy Speaker’s wrath so early in her career as Madam Deputy Speaker. There will be plenty of other occasions when that happens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am surprised that my hon. Friend thinks that regurgitating his argument is absolute rubbish. I was trying to make that point myself, in a spirit of compromise and consensus. He said in his latest intervention that Members of the Youth Parliament should be able to sit here because they cannot stand for election. My 12 and 10-year-old sons cannot stand for election, so presumably, following his logic, and given that we are trying to encourage more young people to get involved in politics, their school should be able to hold its annual debating competition here. Presumably that meets his criteria.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman is incredibly generous to let me intervene twice. Does he agree that if the public pay for a facility, they should get maximum access to it, and that we should be allowing people to use the public buildings they have paid for?